AMBER PEAT - Father speaks out on daughter’s tragic death

Andy Done-Johnson, Local Democracy Reporter

The father of tragic Mansfield teenager Amber Peat has confirmed that he only found out the 13-year-old was missing through posts on social media.

The body of the 13-year-old was discovered on Tuesday evening following a desperate four-day search by residents and police.

She was found less than a mile from her Bosworth Street home in a narrow, densely wooded area which sits at the back of a property between Westfield Lane and Parliament Street.

Police later revealed that the Queen Elizabeth Academy student had died from hanging and they were not treating the death as suspicious.

Following reports in a national newspaper on Sunday that Amber’s natural father Adrian Cook had only found out she had gone missing via Facebook, the 39-year-old then commented on Chad’s Facebook feed.

He describes how his relationship with Amber’s mother Kelly Peat (34) had broken down three years ago and that he had seen Amber twice afterwards before the family moved.

He added that he eventually tracked then down to Tibshelf, but when he went looking for them they had moved again.

He said: “Two years down the line and I find out on Facebook my daughter’s missing. Then my search ends - I’m informed she’s in a hedge, dead. All I wanted was to see my kids.”

The 13-year-old stormed out of her home on Saturday evening after a row over chores, shortly after she had returned from a holiday in Cornwall with mum, Kelly Peat (34) and step-father Danny Peat (31).

Jennifer Lancaster, Amber’s grandmother, was quoted as saying in The Times: “It’s a disgrace that he had to find out that way.

“It’s such a total waste of a beautiful life, a beautiful girl.”

She also paid tribute to the ‘mischievous, fun and loving’ Amber, speaking on behalf of her son.

Ms Lancaster, who is from Ripley in Derbyshire, said: “I just cannot believe this has happened. The whole family is devastated.